A new report published in Sociological Science analyzes male and female Ph.D’s tendencies to concentrate in different fields of study. Men, the study found, gravitate towards higher-paying disciplines compared to their female counterparts.
In an article for Forbes, American Enterprise Institute Scholar Andrew Biggs argued that the study’s findings deal another blow to the popular myth of a gender pay gap.
“The core point for thinking about the gender pay gap,” Biggs wrote, “is the study’s finding that ‘doctoral education in the United States remains deeply segregated by gender.’ That is, men and women tend to pursue different fields of study.”
“Unless we assume that all doctoral degrees have the same value in the marketplace, by itself this means that analysts can’t simply compare the salaries of men and women with Ph.D. degrees and ascribe any pay differences to discrimination. Which is pretty much what proponents of the gender pay gap mean do,” he explained.
Biggs continued:
[The study] lists which fields of study tend to be “most male” or “most female,” meaning fields in which the gender imbalance is the greatest. One must have lived under a rock not to know that so-called “STEM” fields are in great demand and pay well in the marketplace. Lo and behold, all of the “most male” fields of doctoral study are in the STEM fields, including Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, and Computer Science… [The] softer Ph.D. fields of study tend to be disproportionately female, with the “most female” fields including Art History, Psychology, French, Comparative Literature and Sociology.
Biggs rightfully contends the study is more evidence that the supposed 20 percent gender pay gap does not consider men and women’s habit of segregating in fields that tend to pay men more, a pattern that manifests outside just the world of Ph.D. earners.
But the study is notable for another reason as well.
Feminists argue that the pay gap is perpetuated by patriarchal social norms, conditioning women almost from birth to gravitate towards “softer” areas of interest. The study’s findings undermine that contention. Female Ph.D. earners in modern America are some of the most intelligent, most empowered, and most self-determining women to exist in history.
That even they freely choose to concentrate in fields such as Art History, Psychology, and Sociology as compared to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science should tell us these inclinations are rooted in more than just social conditioning. It’s actually somewhat insulting to argue these women’s decisions to dedicate years of work towards their chosen fields were the result of patriarchal conditioning rather than free thought and natural passion.
Though the women’s movement is hesitant to accept that male and female biology drives them in different directions, the sooner society recognizes that reality, the better our collective understanding of gender dynamics will be.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
